Chapter I
DEFINING THE SELF:
PERSONAL AND
DEVELOPMENTAL
PERSPECTIVES ON SELF
AND IDENTITY

Lesson 1
The Self from Various
Philosophical
Perspectives

Lesson 1- The Self from Various Philosophical
Perspectives
1. Socrates-
 While the Pre- Socratic philosophers were
concerned much about what the world is made
up, all these and all that, Socrates was more
concerned on the philosophy that man should
know himself.
 His dictum, “ Know Thyself”.
 He said that an “ unexamined self is not worth
living”

 During Socrates time most men were not
aware of who they were and the virtues
that they were to attain in order to
preserve their souls for the afterlife.
 For Socrates to live but die inside is the
worst that can happen to anyone
 For Socrates man is dualistic (made of
body and soul) Meaning all individuals
have imperfect and impermanent aspect
of him and the body, while maintaining
that there is also a soul that is perfect
and permanent

2. Plato
 a student of Socrates. He supported
the idea that man is a dual nature,
body and soul.
 In addition he added that there are
three components of the soul: the
rational soul, the spirited soul and the
appetitive soul.
 He said that justice can only be
attained when the three parts are
working harmoniously with each other.

 The rational soul forge by reason and
intellect has governed the affairs of the
human person, the spirited part which
is the in charge of emotion should be at
bay, and the appetitive soul is in charge
of base desires like eating, drinking,
sleeping, and having sex are controlled
as well.
 When such ideal harmony of the three
components of the of the soul , then
the soul becomes just and virtuous.

3. Augustine
 Influenced by the ancient view of
Socrates
and Plato, infused his idea of man with
the new found doctrine of Christianity.
 He agreed that man is of bifurcated
nature. One aspect of him dwells in the
world and is imperfect and continuously
yearns to be with the Divine and the
other is capable of resting immortality
 His famous line, “My soul is restless
until it rests in you”

4. Thomas Aquinas
 He is considered the most imminent
thirteenth century scholar and stalwart of
medieval philosophy to Augustine’s
Christian view.
 He said that man is composed of two parts
matter and form
 Matter or “ hyle” in Greeks-refers to the
common stuff that makes up everything in
the universe while form, “morphe” refers to
the essence of a substance ot thing which
differentiates us from other animals and
that is our soul which animates the body
that makes us humans.

5. Descartes
 Father of Modern Philosophy-conceived the idea that the
human person is having a body and a mind.
 He claimed that there is so much that we should doubt.
There are many things we believe yet they turned out to
be false. If something is so clear and lucid as not to be
even doubted, then that is the only time when one should
actually buy a proposition.
 He claimed that that the only thing that one cannot
doubt is the existence of the self, for even if one doubts
oneself, that only proves that there is a doubting self, a
thing that thinks and therefore that can not be doubted.
 Thus his famous, Cogito ergo sum “ I think therefore, I am”.
The fact that one thinks should lead one to conclude
without a trace of doubt that he exists.

 Descartes claimed that the self is a
combination of the two distinct entities,
the cogito, the thing that thinks which is
the mind and the extenza or extension of
the mind, the body.
 His view is that the body isnothing else
but a machine that is attached to the
mind.
 He said that the mind is the thinking
thing, that doubts, understands, affirms,
conceives, denies, imagines and
perceives, etc.

6. Humes
 a Scottish philosopher who has a very unique
way of looking at man.
 He is an empiricist who argues that one can
only know what comes from the senses and
experiences. (Empiricism is the school of
thought that espouses the idea that
knowledge can only be possible if it is
sensed and experienced). When one
imagines the feeling of being in love for
the first time, that is still an idea

 To Humes, the self is nothing else but a bundle
of impressions. Impressions are the basic objects
of our experience or sensation, which are vivid
being products of our direct experience with the
world. Ideas on the other hand are copies of
impressions because they are not as lively and
vivid as our impressions.
 For Hume men simply want to believe that
there is a unified , coherent self, a soul or mind,
just like what other philosophers believe . In
reality what one thinks is a unified self is simply
a combination of experiences with a particular
person.

7. Kant
 Thinking that the self is only impressions was
problematic for Kant. He recognizes Humes
account that everything starts with perception
and sensation of impression, however for him
the things that men perceive around them are
not just ordinarily infused into the human person
without an organizing principle that regulates
the relationships of these impressions.
 For Kant there is necessarily a mind that
organizes the impressions that men get from the
external world.
 Kant suggests that it is an actively engaged
intelligence in man that synthesizes all
knowledge and experiences.

8. Ryle
 solves the body mind dichotomy by
denying the concept of an internal, non
physical self.
For Ryle what truly matters is the
behavior that a person manifests in his
day- to- day life.
Ryle suggests that the “self” is not an
entity one can locate and analyze but
simply the convenient name that people
use to refer to all the behaviors that
people make.

9. Merleau-Ponty
 He says that the mind and body are so
intertwined that they cannot be separated
from one another.
For him one cannot find any experience
that is not an embodied experience. One’s
body is his opening towards his existence to
the world. He doesn’t recognize dualism
because for him it is nothing but
misunderstanding.
For him the living body, his thoughts,
emotions, and experience are all one.